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seemed always to have an air of wistfulness about her when her features were in repose, as if she nursed a secret sorrow. But it was nothing but one of the tricks nature plays with the feminine face for the allurement of men. There was nothing brooding nor melancholy about Elizabeth at heart. Laughter lay close to the surface; it woke in her eyes with even the stealthiest breath of mirth. Not the vacuous loud laughter such as exploded out of the mouths of Annie and Mary Charles, but the refinement of sympathetic merriment, when her expressive eyes sparkled through small slits of closedrawn lids, seeming to say: "I am laughing with you, not at you, my jolly friend."

Elizabeth laughed that way when she told Dr. Hall of standing back in the shadows, watching him waltz with Mrs. Charles.

"It was duty, not pleasure, a social obligation that had to be discharged," he protested, embarrassed in spite of her friendly appreciation.

"Of course," she said. "I wished there were a Mr. Charles to invite me out. It wasn't half as rough as I expected it to be. Railroad manners certainly are improving."

They were at the gateless gap in the wire fence, from which the posts on either hand leaned away as if to ac-